In The Pink

I am going to be without my PC for a few days, a thought I do not relish! However, a necessary step to prevent further damage I think. I have been getting dynamic link initialisation error messages for a while now and other errors have begun to surface. Having discussed it with our local PC chap, who fixed my machine last year, I am going to take it in for him to have a look and advise me with regard to the course of action we take. It is also a good opportunity to back up. I have an external hard drive with my photos saved on but the hard drive is now full and there is lots more stuff on the PC to back up. Anyway, hopefully it will only be for a few short days! Until then happy blogging all and see you soon!

I am enjoying a quiet few minutes before the weekend really kicks in as we have a lot planned for the next couple of days. We did have a lovely lie in this morning as for some reason, known only to Roxy, the dogs did not venture into our room until 7.45am! After that I have been doing some computing and have downloaded Google Chrome to try as a new browser. It claims to be quicker for blogging so I thought I would give it a go. It has also brought to the forefront of my plans some PC repairs as for a short while now I have been getting an error message on start up and have trouble with my windows install software. The same thing happened with the Google Chrome this morning and although I am using it, and liking it so far, I know it is not properly installed. So I have given the local PC shop a call and am going to take my PC in on Monday for a review and possible upgrade to Windows 7. It has been suggested that reinstalling Windows may solve my current issues however I thought I ...

It is just possible that I am finally happy with the look of my main blog! I have been messing around with templates for forever but every time I come to this one I really like it and it reminds me of a sunrise, my favourite time of day. I nearly saw this mornings! That's the only thing about summer; they happen so early it is not easy to get to see them. I woke up at 4.30am this morning and felt quite awake so considered heading up to the hill fort to see the sun rise. It was already light but I knew the sun had not cleared the horizon here. Anyway, as it would happen my alarm was set for 5.30am and the thought of the long day ahead encouraged me to try and sleep for the remaining hour. Another incentive to stay in bed is that at the slightest hint of a walk one of the pups (Roxy) becomes very vocal, and amazingly loud with it, and me getting up and putting shoes on would have been construed as an early walk. So when one of us gets up, we all get up! Kind of like the Bagpuss...

You have to take a minute to watch this! 

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England 1 - Slovenia 0 Wo-hoo! We're Through!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Image Credit: 3D Wallpaper

I have come over all Elton John this morning! My sister introduced me to this album when I was a kid and it has remained one of my favourites ever since and in my opinion Elton's finest to date. I have picked three of my favourite tracks from the double album. There are some live versions of these songs on You Tube which I have watched however in the interests of promoting these songs at their very best here are the studio versions. Some clever souls have put together videos of still shots of Elton over the years, or some appropriate accompanying images, for Harmony and Roy Rogers but the clip I chose for this is the album cover only. I would advise you to press play, turn it way up, sit back and enjoy.

Well there you go; turns out pink is not the colour for me after all! My apologies to regular visitors who find my constant alteration to the blog template and colours annoying, I will try and stay with this for a while but I know it is still not quite right! Its going to be another scorcher here and is warming up already. The dogs are having short walks now and due to Buddy's current foot injury cannot go in the river. Well Roxy could but its not fair to let her in and keep him out and if we do the river walk they need to cool off so we are keeping to shorter walks closer to home where we can keep Buddy on a lead while his foot heals. He stood on something last Thursday and the wound, although looking healthy, is slow to heal. It does not help that he is naturally such an active dog who runs everywhere and the not running everywhere is getting to him I know. Well for now at least they are rested and having an early morning kip after their breakfast. It really is a dogs life!

Well I am loving this weather! I actually spend at least 2 days of the week in doors but have a lovely window seat and keep the windows open so I get the bird song. All week out and about in this would probably be too much anyway as it is quite hot but it is so nice to see so much sun! I have a working area upstairs which as soon as I get my laptop from work will become my office and again it has a lovely window and will give me a bit more piece and quiet. It also means that if Mr Dancin is about we can both do what we need to and not get in each others way. Anyway, it is time to venture out with the pups for now! Image Credit: Free Desktop Backgrounds

Oh dear! My World Cup Diary has become predominantly about England these past few days. We are still watching as many matches as we can and loving the competition however its now got serious and all of my energies are with my home team. Last nights performance, despite earning the team a point, was worrying and a little depressing however after a good soak in the bath and the diversion of a good book I had picked myself up and moved back to optimism town! Today has been filled with criticism and concern which I have done my best to avoid. I do not know why we played so bad and looked so uncomfortable and I don't feel qualified enough to comment on the reasons for this. I am a little fed up of having concerns regarding our manager and their tactics and it is very reminiscent of our performance in the last World Cup under Sven when we began doubting the managers ability to inspire the team and select the appropriate squad and formation but my thoughts on this will make no differe...

Well it is going to have to be some half time team talk by Fabio. I am blogging as I do not want to listen to the half time chat in the BBC studio. It has been a very long time since I have seen England play this bad. I hope that they find their confidence and come out playing in the second half like the team I know they can be, and usually are. Come on England...and Happy Birthday Fabio (64 today).

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Well I have changed my blog look again; although I am pleased to say this time it was deliberate! I really like the new blogger templates and have been trying to get all four of my blogs looking right for a while. I think the WWMC blog is perfect for a platform for live music clips. The Green Man and Evolved blogs are OK for now but may change again. This blog I love in black but I worry that the text is too hard to read and find if difficult to do so myself sometimes. So I am trying this! The Pink background suits the blog title and I think it is much clearer and so I may stick with this. I am a creature of change though so I can't promise anything! Every once in a while I get similar urges at home and Mr Dancin comes home to find a room has been moved round, although our current house is a little small and I do not have many options for moving furniture! Maybe that's why I change my blog so much! I would love to have some of this furniture in my house; imagine the ch...

Well work has put pay to my daily World Cup diary entries the past few days but it has not reduced our enjoyment of the competition. All of the games have been of interest but I thought Germany have by far looked the most dangerous and organised team so far. England play their second game tomorrow night and my nerves are returning. I have put it out of my mind for the past few days and have just been enjoying the other games but now the butterflies in my stomach have returned and the mental countdown has begun. I never have any doubt that we have the skill to win but I think confidence and positive attitude on the night are so key for England. So, I will do my best to put my nerves aside and lend the power of positive thought to my team! I believe!

Group C (Polokwane) Algeria vs Slovenia (12:30) 0-1 R Group D (Pretoria) Serbia vs Ghana (15:00) 0-1 R Group D (Durban) Germany vs Australia (19:30) 4-0 R

Well....it's been a long day! It's hard to look back now, I was expecting an England win, but we played really well and have taken 1 point which is very good. So, firstly, Greece vs Korea; I have to say as much as I like Korea I wanted to Greece to win. I lived there for a year so they are the nearest to a second home I have but I am afraid they did not turn up today and it was 2 easy goals that saw South Korea beat them. Secondly, I am afraid Argentina are an arch enemy of England in terms of football only, and I like Nigeria, so I was sad to see them loose but they really had their chances and blew them all. As for the last game, and the best game of the tournament yet in my opinion, I was expecting England to win. I know they can do it but at this stage you can not afford to miss any opportunity. I have been watching football for 13 years now so I know these guys, boys to men. It was an excellent game and USA were worthy opponents. We played very well but were not ...

Group B (Port Elizabeth)  South Korea vs Greece (12:30) 2-0 R Group B (Johannesburg)  Argentina vs Nigeria (15:00) 1-0 R Group C ( Rustenburg )  England vs USA (19.30) 1-1 R * We have noticed some discrepancies between published fixture times, world cup wall charts (from the same publications!) and the TV Guide (Radio Times) so I recommend you turn on your TV early and check your TV Guides so avoid missing the start of any game. I expect it is due to the time difference between the UK and South Africa however publications are not specifying this so be careful! All three games are going to be brilliant today! We are watching a repeat of yesterdays opening game at the moment as we missed it due to work and what an opening game it was. Also I am really happy to say I think the referees and lines men have been very good so far.  I am used to officials in the World Cup being a little over zealous when it comes to penalising players. I can understand it, this is th...

I have pinched another of Bing's images and I have to say they are really pulling out all of the stops at the moment with each daily image being a beauty. Obviously this is nice and topical too as it is England's first World Cup game later today against USA. I also have to post this fantastic image I got off Bing last week . I cannot take my eyes away from this owl, his gaze is so intense and so knowing! Thanks Bing ! I really would recommend setting Bing as your homepage as their photos are amazing and there are links on the page you can click on to find out more about the subject matter of the shots they include.

Well the fours years of waiting are over and once again World Cup excitement fills our lives! The host nation - South Africa. It was very sad that they day also started with the news of the death of Nelson Mandelas great grand daughter, and also the vehicle accident that lead to the death of 3 students from Leicestershire and the serious injury of several other students. I started listening to Radio 5 Lives coverage of the competition on my drive to site this morning where the build up began, my stomach churning in excitement. I missed most of the first game, between the host nation and Mexico which kicked off at 3pm, but was delighted to hear that South Africa scored the first goal of the 2010 finals with an amazing strike from Siphiwe Tshabalala. I did hear their chance to win the game, following a late equaliser by Mexico, as they hit the post in the last 10 minutes or so however it was not meant to be. The game finished 1-1 and by all accounts was a fair result. I made it...

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I felt the need to listen to a sad song this evening. There are not many that really do it for me in the sad category, The Way We Were may make me sing to the heavens but leaves me dry, (However the film is a completely different story!) and most of the classic love songs lots of folk think of as sad songs are just interesting music and lyrics to me. This is one of the two songs that are guaranteed to make me fill up and blub! (The other one is Bright Eyes - Watership Down, Art Garfunkel but I never go there!!) Anyway, aside from being my sad song it is very beautiful and has some amazing photographs of lions to accompany it.

I received my Tiger update from the WWF today. They were lucky enough to get this shot of Kamrita as she tripped a night camera they have set up, and I also got this shot of one of her cubs. She is currently raising two cubs. Apparently Tiger cubs leave their mother at 18-24 months of age, dependant on their gender. Females hang around a little longer. The WWF are reporting that as little as 400 Sumatran tigers may be left in the wild but were also able to report that numbers of prey in their habitat were good at this time and a major blow to poaching has been struck following the surrender of a group of high-profile poachers. The WWF are working along with IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) to prevent poaching and will benefit from the information the surrendered poachers give them. In addition they are helping the poachers find new livelihoods so that they may support themselves and their families by other means.

This is one of my favourite Roy Harper songs and a song I always associate with the weekend, in particular Sunday mornings. Sundays, after the dog walk, we tend to put some music on, potter about making breakfast and then sit chatting for a while. We often do some gardening and then I usually make an afternoon cooked meal, sometimes a roast. Sundays - slow and easy.  Its quite long and has been posted in two parts! What is your Sunday routine?

Yep, done it again! Not so much with my blogging, although this is not exactly how I wanted In The Pink to look after I had been fiddling, but now my task bar on my PC is on the side of my screen and I cannot get it back! For those of you that do not know what I am going on about I have a nasty habit of getting bored with the look of my blog, trying to make changes, messing it up and spending hours putting it right! We are currently between the messing it up and putting it right stage, only this time more significant was the unintended click on my task bar which has caused it to relocate! A lot of things like this on PCs are logical in their solutions, but it would seem not this! If anyone knows how I can get my task bar back to the bottom of my page can they let me know? Anyway I have had a delightful few hours of blogging and got posts up on all of my blogs. I have also decided to create a new blog, more on that soon. While posting here I wanted to include two shots I go...

May was a brilliant blogging month for me and I seemed to have something to say most days and the time to say it, June so far has been very different! I cannot quite put my finger on why but most days seem to have been those where each moment is scheduled and there is little time to relax. I have had some very long days surveying, which is OK and nothing too new, but I think in the heat as well it has drained me and taken its toll. I feel the need to sleep, a lot! Anyway, it is the weekend so there is time for a few naps. I was going to post a picture of a cat napping at this point and was just off to Bing Images to have a look when I spotted this on the Bing Homepage . Wow! Happy relaxing weekend all!